


Half Sunk, A Shattered Visage Lies

by dietplainlite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Atonement - Freeform, Forgiveness, Gen, Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 18:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6764884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dietplainlite/pseuds/dietplainlite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years, with every moment and breath, there’s always been one undercurrent, as constant and steady as her heartbeat, sent out into the universe in the vain hope he would hear and heed.<br/>Yet she’d never stopped to consider what would happen when she got her wish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half Sunk, A Shattered Visage Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PetraTodd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetraTodd/gifts), [nicolebrander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicolebrander/gifts).



> Artwork by Nicole Brander. Do not repost.  
> Title from "Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley

 

Leia’s only child had once been shorter than her. She would arrive home, sometimes gone hours, sometimes days, and he would run to her, hug her, then look up, his face usually streaked with dirt, and tell her about his adventures, holding onto her skirt.

He also held her like that when he had done something wrong, whether small (dropping and breaking his holopad) to large (getting mad and pushing someone with his mind.)

Her skirts have been soiled with mud and jam and the tracks of his tears.

_I’m sorry I’m so sorry mama._

For years, with every moment and breath, there’s always been one undercurrent, as constant and steady as her heartbeat, sent out into the universe in the vain hope he would hear and heed.

Come home.

Come home.

Come home.

Yet she’d never stopped to consider what would happen when she got her wish.

And now her child, her son, a war criminal, is in front of her, face permanently streaked by a young woman’s rage, hands plucking at her dress, listing his sins.

_I’m sorry mama I’m so sorry._

She’s watched her home world destroyed. Accepted that her father was a monster. She’s felt the deaths of billions and the deaths of those who strive under her command.

There is no death penalty in The Resistance.

There has not been a single moment, not even when she felt, simultaneously, Han’s soul slipping from the world and her son’s anguish as he completed the act, that she has wanted death for her child, her son, the war criminal.  Nor would she wish death on anyone else’s child.

But others will.  No matter what this man does to atone, he will always be in danger. But those who try to eliminate him will be in even more danger.

He could tear this entire base apart.

What is the extent of his power?  At this point, _he_ may well have become a superweapon, capable of destroying worlds.

_I’m sorry mama I’m so sorry._

How is it possible to go from crying over pushing your friend too hard, to driving a blade through your father’s chest? From expressing sorrow at the fall of a baby bird, to standing by while systems turn to dust?

Yet she stands here with him, alone, against the wishes of everyone who cares for her she faces him alone.

Her child, her son, a war criminal.

She looks, across years, across the galaxy.  To the moment when Han forgave this child. To the moment when Luke forgave Darth Vader. To the terrifying moment when she found common ground with Anakin Skywalker.

She looks down at her child, her son, a war criminal.

She tells him to rise.


End file.
